Best Kitchen Knife Sets

Your Ultimate Guide To The Best Kitchen Knives

For all the fancy culinary gadgets that are available to you, the keen home cook, at Christmas, nothing — and I mean nothing — is as important as a good set of knives. Ask any of the dozens of chefs I come in contact with on a regular basis, and they will tell you exactly the same. They protect their knife rolls as if they were infant children and snarl at anyone who even looks as if they might touch the tools of their trade.

There are dozens of different brands available and dozens of different styles of knife suitable for every task in the kitchen. Pricing can range from as little as $30 for a chef’s knife to the cost of a sizeable meal for two for a knife set.

If you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, you can easily find yourself spending a small fortune on knives that you will never use. Choose correctly, however, and your knives can become the most essential tools in your kitchen and last you a lifetime.

Buying the right knives can be a bewildering business, so here are a few tips to help you make the perfect choice.

1. You only really need 4 knives

If you believe all the infomercials and the babbling of presenters on the home shopping channels, it is impossible to produce good food at home unless you buy a block containing at least half a dozen different styles of knife and a few steak knives for good measure. But you really only need the following knives to take on just about any task in the kitchen.

-CHEF’S KNIFEA good chef’s knife (usually around 8 inches long and 1 ½ inches wide) is the single most important knife you will ever buy. It can be used for everything from slicing and chopping vegetables to cutting joints of meat.HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU SPEND? Prices for good knives range from around $40 to as much as you care to spend. I use a slightly smaller Japanese ceramic chef’s knife and a German steel knife.

-PARING KNIFEA paring knife (usually around 4 inches long) is another essential, particularly if you have intricate or fiddly tasks, like peeling fruits and vegetables, sectioning citrus, or taking the veins out of shrimp.HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU SPEND?I use a German steel paring knife, which costs around $70, but you can spend as little as $20 and get an excellent knife that will do the job.

-CLEAVERThis is a much wider knife (usually around 6 to 8 inches long and about 3 inches wide) and is particularly vital if you joint meat at home and do not want to dull or damage the edge of your expensive chef’s knife. I use it all the time to joint poultry, saving money on buying pre-jointed pieces at the supermarket.HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU SPEND? Again, you can spend a fortune on these, but I love the cleaver I bought at a local Asian market for around $10.